


Simple Reasons

by FannishMinded



Series: HKM Fills [3]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, Death, Genocide, Horrible AU, Multi, No Beta, Other, dark au, everyone dies, no one was spared, not even the children, seriously, totally disproportionate revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:04:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3265973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FannishMinded/pseuds/FannishMinded
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fill from the HKM- A Hobbit's Curse is a Deadly Thing<br/>Prompt: http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/7346.html?thread=16629682#t16629682<br/>After the BotFA, Bilbo makes ready to leave the mountain. Unfortunately, he never makes it off the mountain.<br/>-snip for long ass prompt- Bilbo gets executed, due to shenanigans and gold sickness -snip-<br/>It turns out that Bilbo cursed Thorin and the line of Durin for their greed and malice. He also cursed the dwarves who stirred Thorin's hatred up. They know it's a curse by one simple sign.<br/>The day after Bilbo's execution, one of the dwarves who stirred Thorin up dies horribly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple Reasons

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt:  
> After the BotFA, Bilbo makes ready to leave the mountain. Unfortunately, he never makes it off the mountain.
> 
> You see, the gold-sickness never truly left Thorin. Although he's now clear-headed enough to lead as king, he's still tainted. He wants to punish Bilbo for daring to give away the Arkenstone. Some dwarves, eager to see the hobbit punished, begin whispering foul advice into Thorin's ear. They stir his hatred of Bilbo to the point where Thorin knows what he must do. He orders Bilbo be captured and jailed in their dungeons. An extremely reluctant Dwalin carries out the order.
> 
> Bilbo knows Thorin isn't well, but can't fathom why he won't allow Bilbo to leave. It isn't until he is brought before Thorin and a council of dwarves that he sees why. Many of these dwarves believe Thorin's view of Bilbo. They don't see his actions as a last resort to peace. He's a traitor of the highest order. Despite Bilbo's pleas, Thorin orders Bilbo be executed. The council cheers his decision.
> 
> Yet something breaks within Bilbo. Something all hobbits keep hidden away. On the day of his execution, Thorin asks if he has any last words. To the surprise of him and all onlookers, Bilbo snarls something in a language never heard before. He goes to his death enraged. Many of the onlookers shake off the strange words, but one of the Company cannot. They decide to research Bilbo's last words. They make a stunning discovery.
> 
> It turns out that Bilbo cursed Thorin and the line of Durin for their greed and malice. He also cursed the dwarves who stirred Thorin's hatred up. They know it's a curse by one simple sign.
> 
> The day after Bilbo's execution, one of the dwarves who stirred Thorin up dies horribly.
> 
> \----  
> I take this and RUN with it. Originally posted at like 3am, like most HKM entries it was typed directly into the little comment box, so as always, what is this "editing" thing, kemmosabe?

There is a very simple reason the Shire is so peaceful.

It is not because the Rangers have always guarded it.

It is not because the Hobbits have little in the way of gold or gems.

As all of Middle Earth whispers after the disaster of Erebor, with horrified awe and terror, it is because none would be stupid enough to risk a Hobbit's death curse.

It is said in hushed tones that Hobbits are blessed creatures, the children of Yavanna, so tied to earth and life that their lands grow more fertile the longer they live in it. In turn they, share deep ties, are connected with all life around them. In them rests a fountain of power that they never consciously tap. Not while having a hope of living, at least.

The whispers turn to cautionary tales, as the survivors of Erebor's final fall spread far and wide, hoping to spread the effect and escape their fate.

As proof of their wild tales, not even distance and separation saved those desperate dwarves.

The reason for this plague on Dwarves was best illustrated by one of the last works ever created by dwarven hands.

It tells in detail how not one dwarf in Erebor, not even the company the Hobbit traveled so far with, had stepped up against the council when the order for execution came. Not one tried to stop the blade or block it, for fear of joining in the doomed hobbit's fate.

And because of this, not one dwarf, to have ever entered the halls of Erebor, nor their descendants, would live to die of age, for the weight of their greed would crush them far before time could ravage them.

It was the book of one young dwarf, who had been poor most of his life, who had favored books to swords and ink to gems, who lived long enough to document the entire journey, and it's gruesome end.

In it, was a translation of the curse and the final written epitaph for Durin's folk.

The simple passage containing the translation is taught to Mannish children and Elvish children alike.

"We were cursed, each of us for greed and cowardice in turn.

Bilbo had stood, turning to each familiar, once friendly face, only to find not a single ally stepping forward. In the end his own face became dark and he caught eyes with Thorin.

His words rattled the very air, made the walls quake and fires gutter. 

**Gold you sought and blinded it made,**  
 **Greed you have, now suffer it's blade,**  
 **Fall of father, sin to daughter, son and shade,**  
 **All who turned, all who whispered, all who bade,**  
 **Within these halls you tread your last,**  
 **Judged by all your treasures vast,**  
 **Carry always your sins and golden treasures, mount they their weight with every day, for each covetous piece once hoarded will weigh on you, no matter when it parted from you, out from father, to son and daughter, cousin and uncle, till the last weight of gold in the horde you coveted is finally spent and carried through the night.**

Lyrical and alien to all ears that heard it, the swelling speech of hobbits sounded out and Bilbo did not speak again.

We could not understand it, at the time. Only later would Gandalf the Grey translate it. He was so solemn and sad in the telling, for he knew as he heard it that we had doomed ourselves.

Dwarrows are all descended from the same 7 ancestors, and all Dwarrows have an affinity for gold. This curse bids us carry the weight of every piece of gold we have touched. Worse, the gold our fathers before them touched after we have carried all our own weight of gold touched. Each weight we carry taking equal weight from the piles of gold the Hobbit won for us. 

It passes, from cousin to uncle, from father to son, from son to mother, ever outward. All of us, cousins or nephews, however removed we are still one line.

We recovered a mountain of gold in Erebor, and until it's weight is carried, we will continue to die. No distance can save us. There was hope, early on, that some would survive, that we could exhaust the weight. It was a foolish hope. The weight is more than every Dwarrow who ever lived could share.

None will survive the wrath of our hobbit hero, spurned.

For Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror, sought to restore his people, and in his madness replaced a dragon's wrath for that of a goddess.

And as she gave her blessed the luck and skill to restore, so she also gave him the power to destroy.

We have never risen farther than when we reclaimed Erebor with a band of 14, and we will all fall from life and history, from that same event.

Our only hope, is that Mahal's wife forgives his foolish children enough to let them enter their halls."

Added in the margins, and always faithfully reproduced despite obviously not being part of the text itself is the author's very last words.

_"And if she is very kind, someday I might be able to apologize. I grow sleepy, and already my bones creak dangerously from last night's weight. I have never known a kinder soul than Bilbo Baggins, and his curse holds all the more weight for being so justly earned. "_

The story has been copied and spread in it's entirety, after the author's death, far and wide in every language written.

Simply put, no, the Shire is not protected by the Rangers.  
The rangers are protecting the rest of Middle Earth from themselves.

Because no one, wants to ever so wrong a Hobbit again.

Valar knows that the Elves and Humans could ill afford a similar curse, for if one fell, the other would as well.


End file.
